LATEST ISSUE

The final AJ of the year looks back at the past 12 months and forward to the year ahead. We review 2018’s key architectural events and trends and preview the stories set to dominate the new year. We also pick out the people to watch in 2019 and highlight eight key buildings set to complete. And to make sure you’ve been paying attention, there’s a Christmas quiz on the events that shook the architectural world in 2018 and a chance to play spot the building. PLUS a building study of Karakusevic ..

Page\Park to give evidence to Scottish Parliament over Mac fire

Page\Park Architects are set to give evidence to the Scottish Parliament over the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) fire

Practice director David Page and head of design review David Paton will both give evidence this Thursday (October 25) to a committee focused on the management and custodianship of the landmark Macintosh building.

Holyrood’s Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee will also hear from Brian McQuade, managing director of Kier Construction, the contractor overseeing the Mac’s restoration following the earlier 2014 fire.

GSA trustee Muriel Gray will also face questions from MSPs in November, as criticism mounts over the college’s stewardship of the building.

Last month the committee was told that the Mac should be removed from the control of the GSA.

Former GSA employee Eileen Reid, one-time head of widening participation, said the school should step aside from the rebuild and concentrate on teaching students.

Reid said: ‘I do not see how the current set-up is fit for purpose for this massive rebuild. There should be an overarching board of experts from across the country driving the rebuild forward. Let the Glasgow School of Art get on with its core business.’

But architect Malcolm Fraser told the committee that the Mac should be rebuilt as a teaching and learning environment.

‘It is unusual to have a historical building that still works perfectly for its purpose,’ he said. ‘It was a building of transcendent importance to architecture, we have to get it rebuilt … it should be a working building for students.’

According to a report in The Herald, fire safety experts will be brought in next month to assess the blaze risk to buildings overseen by the college.

The institution is to appoint a contractor on November 2 to ‘undertake a fire compliance report on GSA’s buildings’.

Meanwhile, the GSA recently announced the stabilisation of the building’s west gable wall had been completed.

Work has also been completed on a protective passageway on the west side of Scott Street, which the GSA has created as an additional level of protection for the fire exit from the CCA.

In a statement, Gray said: ‘This has been a challenging time for all the residents and businesses who have been affected by the fire in the Mackintosh Building. We are truly sorry for the impact it has had and want to thank everyone for their patience’.

The west gable of the mackintosh building showing the specially designed restraint system over the library tower (2)

Questions about whether the Glasgow School of Art should maintain control of the Mac will be raised at a Scottish parliamentary committee, as criticism mounts over the college’s stewardship of the building

"Mackintosh art school ‘should not be rebuilt by pedantic architects’
Computers should take charge of the rebuilding of Glasgow School of Art rather than pedantic architects, according to the biographer of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Roger Billcliffe.

“The computer will make the drawings to make the building again,” he said. “It may be a good thing that the computer is doing it — it won’t be tempted to put in the twiddly bits that architects might add, ‘improving’ on Mackintosh.”

"It's not a blame game, I'm not saying they should go to prison" "I don't want to send them to prison but I want to make sure they don't operate in a system where they co do it again" Roger Billcliffe CTEEA Committee.

In News

The AJ supports the architecture industry on a daily basiswith in-depth news analysis, insight into issues that are affecting the industry, comprehensive building studies with technical details and drawings, client profiles, competition updates as well as letting you know who’s won what and why.